Manufacture of imitation leather and the like



June 3 1924.

J. J. WARREN MANUFACTURE OF IMITATION LEATHER AND THE LIKE Filed Aug. 1. 1919 W INVENTOR ATTORNEYS.

Patented June 3, 192 4.

JOHN J. WARREN, F BROWNVILLE, NEW YORK.

MANUFACTURE OF IMITATION LEATHER AND THE LIKE.

Application filed Au ust 1, 1919. Serial No. 314,794.

To all whom it may concern.

Be it known that I, JOHN J. WARREN, a citizen of the United States, residi at Brownville, in the county of J eflersom s lzate 5 of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Manufacture of Imitation Leather and the like; and I do hereby declare the following to. be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled.

in the art to which it appertains, to make and use the same.

This invention relates to the manufacture of multiple-ply paper products, such as imitation leather and the like. In the usual methods of making products of this character, the stock which is chemieall treated in a manner to impart the desire characteristics to the finished product is wound on the roll of any ordinary wet machine until a sheet of the desired thickness is obtained after which it is cut from the roll and dried in the air. The limitations imposed by the apparatus used in these methods prevent'the formation of long continuous webs. When it is attempted to produce such webs on ordinary multiple-ply-cylinder machines, difficulty is encountered, due to the fact that the stock is heavy and has slight adhesive qualities, so that the plies cannot be put together by simply passing the felt over one cvlinder after another until the desired thickness is obtained, as in the manufacture of ordinary multiple-ply paper.v The stock does not adhere to the felt and after a few plies have been added, its weight will cause it to drop off of the felt into the cylinder vat.

It is an object of this invention to pro- 40 vide 'a method of manufacturing paper products of the character referred to, which will enable long continuous webs of material of any desired thickness to be rapidly and cheaply produced, and will otherwise overcome the disadvantages of the methods commonly employed for the production of such products.

In accordance with the invention the stock 1 which has'been previously prepared in a suitable manner is formed into a number of separate sheets, each composed of one Or more plies, preferably by a series of cylindrical paper machines, and the several sheets while in wet condition are combined successively until a web of the desired thickness has been formed. After each sheet has been combined with the preceding sheets, the resulting web may be impregnated with a suitable liquid to impart the desired char.- acterictics to the finished product, and preferably the initial sheet is also impregnated before it is united with the second sheet, The liquid may, however,'be ap lied to the stock before it is formed into t e shwts.

The particular nature of the invention will appear more clearly from a description of a preferred apparatus which may be employed for practicing the -method, and which in itself constitutes a part of the invention. Figure 1 of the accompanying drawings represents in somewhat diagrammatic form an arrangement in which cylindrical paper machines are employed; Figure 2 is a plan view of part of the apparatus of Figure 1, and Figure 3 shows a modified arrangement of the apparatus.

In the drawings each of the reference characters 10 denotes a cylindricalpapermaking unit of any suitable construction, all of these units being mounted upon the floor 11. Each of the units comprises in general a tank 12 provided with the neces! sary pipes 13 for supplying stock and water to the cylinders, for conveying circulating water from the tanks and for other purposes customary with apparatus of this character, but since the piping systems form no part of the present invention, they have not been shown in detail. In each of the tanks is a rotary cylinder 14. above which is a couch roll '15 supported in any suitable manner (not shown) and over which passes a felt 16. In the arrangement of apparatus shown in Figure 1', each of the cylinders 14 is provided with an individual felt which travels over suitable guide-rolls 17 and between press rolls 18, which may be located upon an upper floor .19 and driven by gears 20 and pulleys 21. Each of the felts is also provided able construction, and before passing through the press rolls 18 each felt travels over a suitable suction box 23. There are associated with each felt and its press rolls and suction box impregnating rolls 24 with a tightener 22 of any suitcondition. As appears most the press rolls 18 adapted to take up from atank 25 and characteristics, which will give them the. appearance of artificial leather, or an other material that is being manufacture upon the machine. Since the impregnating rolls may be of *any suitable construction and provided with all necessary means of adjustment, no particular form of rolls has been shown in the drawing.

In the arrangement of apparatus shown in Figure 3, each unit of the machine comprises a pair of cylinders 14 having a common felt 16, suction box 23, press rolls 18, and impregnating rolls 24, so that two-ply sheets are produced by each chine. It will also be understood that each unit of the machine may include more than two cylinders, so that multiple-ply sheets may be produced, but, as stated above, the weight and lack o-fadhesive qualities of the stock used for the formation of artificial 4 leather render it impracticable to attempt to combine more than two or three plies.

In the'practice. of the method of the invention, the-stock before being supplied to the tanks of the cylinders is suitably treated. The stock is then conveyed to the units of the apparatus, and the sheet of paper produced by the cylinders is carried upwardly over the couch roll 15 by the felt 16. During the passage of the sheets over the suction boxes 28, the greater portion of the water will be removed, so that the sheets will enter the press rolls 18 in a partly dried clearly in Figures 1 and 3, the sheet 26 produced by unit A at the left-hand end of the diagram will after leaving the press rolls 18 of this unit, pass through t e impregnating rolls '24 of the same unit, after which it will, be brought into engagement with the wet sheet 26" produced on the next unit, that is, unit B, and the suctiontbox 23 of this unit will remove most of the water from the wet sheet after which the two sheets will passv through of the second unit and be united into a web 27,. and will then'pass through the impregnating r0lls 24 of this second unit, so that the desired liquid is applied to the side of the web formed by the second sheet; The two-sheet web thus produced will pass on and be combined in a similar manner with the wet sheet 26 pro duced by the third unit C, and the threeshect web 27 resulting from this stage of the operation will be impregnated by the rollers 24 of the third unit and pass on to the next unit D, where a fourth sheet 26" will be combined with the three previously produced, and a four-sheet web will result. The operations described above will occur at each of the successive units throughout the length of the machine and ultimately the unit of themameaoio web 27 will be brought to the desired thickness and conveyed away from the machine for subsequent treatment.

The invention thus provides a process of producing imitation leather and the like in which a plurality of sheets are formedout of suitable stock and then combined successively when in a wet condition, so that they become firmly united into a, web of progressively increasing thickness. Each of the sheets may comprise a single ply of material, or may be composed of several plies,

the number depending upon the weight, the

adhesive qualities of the material, and other characteristics which determine the number of plies that will adhere to each other upon the felt of each unit of the machine.

The substances employed for impregnating the sheets to impart the required characteristics to the finished product may be added to the stock in the tanks, but it is preferred to apply the substances to the sheets by means of-the impregnating rolls 24, in which case the first sheet will be given an initial impregnation before beingcombined with the second sheet, and after each successive sheet has been added to' the web, the web will be passed through theimpregnating rolls so that the desired liquid is applied to the web throughout its entire thickness,

resulting in the production of a multiple-Q treatment, so that there is obtained a product in which the component sheets are unitcd to form a uniform web, which may be of 5 any desired length.

I claim: 1. The herein described process of producing imitation leather and the like, which consists in producing out of suitable stock a the webs successively while in wet -condition to make up a web of the desired thickness,-and impregnating the composite web aftereach successive web has been added to impart the desired characteristics.

2. The herein described process of producing imitation leather and the like, which 7 consists in producing a' plurality of webs of plurality of webs of material, combining 3-. Apparatus for the roduction of conthereon with, the sheets .produced by preeedtinuous webs of multip e-ply 'paper, -c0ming units of the series, and an impregnating prising a series of cylindrical paper-making 'device associated with each set of press roll 10 units, a felt associated with each unit for for treating the webs of paper after they 5' taking of the web of pa er produced therehave been united by the rolls.

on, press. rolls associat witheach unit for In testimony whereof I aflix my si 'nature. uniting in wet condition the web produced JOHN J. WARfiEN, 

